ok folks, i knew it would not be long till i re-posting on my beloved windstar, i just got done last week with installing the newer 3.8 engine, she runs super smooth. with 192k i noticed the tranny had distinctive shudder especially on a sharp left from stand still. so i decided to help things along, and purchased some lucas transmission fluid stuff! i removed exactly the amount of old fluid to allow for the new fluid 24oz to be exact.
at first it seemed great no shudder smooth shifts. my daughter was using the van on a long run about 100 miles round trip. she calls me about 5 miles from home to tell me the od light was flashing and check engine light was on and the traction control was on too. i tell her to baby it home, she calls me 30 seconds later to tell me the tranny blew up! and she pulled off the road. i go with my car dolly to pick her and the kids up and the windstar. today i thought what the heck, i dropped the pan cleaned things up put a new filter in it and refilled it with 8 qts of mercon v fluid. cleared the codes and hit the key. she fired up and i looked under it and not a drop of fluid coming from anywhere. i take it out for a test run 10 miles. No rough shifts, No shudder, No drips, just very smooth...
do you all think the lucas was too much (thick) for the pump and got things too hot and it unloaded the contents all over the highway. I cant figure it out. My daughter called me tonight to tell me on the same trip again that it performed flawlessly never better. I dont know maybe its just a matter of time who knows? I cannot tell you what fluid was in the tranny originaly or how old it was. I can tell you it was really brownish not bright red, but didnt smell burnt. perhaps it was regular mercon, ive been reading where you should always use mercon v in all windstars regardless of the manual says. what do you think?

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